


sui generis

by FiveEyesBurgerAndFries (Doesyourmotherknowyoureanon)



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Gen, Other, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 21:37:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13016655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doesyourmotherknowyoureanon/pseuds/FiveEyesBurgerAndFries
Summary: James Comey relives his career. Again. And again. And again. On hiatus until I feel like writing again, thanks for your patience.





	1. woke up this morning to an empty sky

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike my non-RPF works, I'm not okay with this being translated, podficced, or otherwise reproduced. I do not give any permission for this work to be used in articles about fandom. Additionally, I'm VERY NOT OKAY with this being shared with anyone like, say, your cousin who's twitter-famous for their Russia investigation hot takes. Mmmkay?

James Comey thanked the lord for small mercies at the sight of his deserted driveway. He was too wrung-out to face the reporters he compared to seagulls earlier that day. Even the deluge of calls and texts he received on the ride home barely penetrated the somewhat giddy haze of released tension and bone-deep exhaustion.

His jacket and tie were off before he made it to the front door, and his shoes, the minute he was inside. He almost tripped over the coat rack, but he didn’t stop to turn on the light. Food was the only thing on his mind. It took him five minutes of fruitless searching for the peanut butter jar in a cabinet that might as well have been a black hole before noticing the sandwich on the counter. He took a bite before letting the muffled sound of Wolf Blitzer lead him to Patrice dozing on the couch. He smiled fondly and pecked her on the cheek. Then, hastily, he brushed off a stray crumb.

She woke at that.

“You did great,” she said, pulling him down into a hug. They stayed like that for a minute.

“Want to head out tomorrow morning or afternoon?” she asked as he settled himself next to her and thanked her for the sandwich.

“I’d prefer morning, if we can,” he said.

"Want to avoid the traffic."

Jim weaved in and out of attention as Patrice went over their plans, answering her questions by rote around bites of sandwich.

After putting a reminder in his phone that he owed Pat and Dan more coherent calls tomorrow, he finally went to bed, falling asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.

When Jim came back into awareness, his first, muddled, thought was that he must really be wiped if he didn’t remember getting up to use the bathroom. He reached for the doorknob, and-- hmm. It wasn’t there. He felt for it several times more, flummoxed by the doorknob’s refusal to appear.

He recognized the smell before consciously knowing where he was. The Southern District of New York office wasn’t exactly a new building, and always smelled faintly of generations of sweat and wet wool and dust and stale coffee. Then, as the disorientation wore off, he noticed more details: frosty, delicate light streaming through the windows, an ancient computer, a stack of manila folders on his desk. With clumsy hands, he opened the top folder. The first page said imclone about ten times, and his pulse sped up at the realization that even though he hadn’t seen the document in fifteen years, every word was exactly as it was then.

His breath and heartbeat were unbearably loud in the deserted office. He wanted the heater to groan, footfalls outside his door, anything.

“Hello?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure he was the only person there besides front desk security.

When no one replied, he turned to look out the window and inhaled sharply at what he saw. His gut twisted; he hadn’t seen it like this for a while. Ground Zero was still an open wound in the city, crawling with orange-vested workers even in the chill. Jim pinched himself. It hurt, even through the winter-weight suit Patrice purged from his closet a decade ago, but he stayed rooted to the spot, breath fogging the window. Jim knew he had a good memory, but this. This felt different. He’d had realistic dreams before, but never with this much detail, this slowly-blossoming lucidity. He felt sick.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a cup of water sitting on a filing cabinet. He gulped half of it down before noticing the lipstick stain sunk into the styrofoam. He gagged. Great. The stale water didn’t make him feel any better, anyway. His heart was pounding and he was shivering and cold sweat was prickling on his forehead and he--

He jerked awake, drenched in sweat. His heart seemed to have migrated into his ears and he was taking great, heaving breaths. He put a hand to his chest, wondering if he was having a heart attack. He considered, then discarded the idea of waking Patrice.

When he didn’t think his legs would give out from under him, he got up and changed his t-shirt. The clock on his nightstand said 2:15. He turned his pillow over to the cool side, and fell back asleep almost immediately.

* * *

 

“I had a really weird dream last night,” he told Patrice as he merged onto the highway. The joy of being able to drive again still hadn’t waned, and she was very tolerant of her reassignment to the passenger seat.

“You always have weird dreams after hearings,” she said. “Remember the zombie James Blair one?”

“Yeah, and... okay, maybe not weirder than that one,” he said. “It was just….” He tapped the steering wheel, thinking of how to phrase it.

“It was too clear, does that make any sense? I was back in the old New York office and everything was perfect. It was more detailed than I can even remember right now.”

“Hmm,” she said.

“I opened up a file to read, and it was completely accurate,” he added.

Patrice frowned slightly. “I thought it was impossible to read in dreams.”

He thought it over for a second. “That’s what I thought, but I guess I can. Maybe if it something you read in the past?”

“Or maybe you're just special, Jim,” she said teasingly. “That’s such a random day to revisit.”

“I’d have preferred to see some other time, myself. Maybe the Middle Ages.”

She laughed shortly. “Yeah, that sounds more interesting.” She nodded at the driver in the next lane peering into their car. “Or even a time where you don’t get stared at,” she said.

“That would be nice,” he admitted, carefully keeping his eyes forward.

“What part of the Middle Ages, though?” he asked Patrice quickly, keen to change the subject.

“Would it be cliche to say the High Middle Ages?” she asked.

Their ensuing discussion ended up lasting the rest of the car ride and into the evening, after adding it to the family group chat.

He wanted to relax. There would be a lot of work in the coming weeks and months, but for now he was on vacation.

Unfortunately, his brain didn’t get the memo. The next night, it hit again. He was back in Richmond, doing end-of-day paperwork while waiting on a call back from Jerry Oliver. It was a little sad to talk to him again, especially knowing what would happen to him in Detroit. He acclimated more quickly than the first time, though he was doubtless doing the paperwork more slowly than he would have if he hadn’t had to rely on decades-old memories of his work. There were so many names he hasn’t seen in a long time. Other than that, his mind felt sharp; there was no bizarre dream logic and his hands looked disconcertingly young and veinless. Everything was exactly as it had been.


	2. you should check me, balance me

Even with his feet buried in the North Carolina sand, Jim felt untethered. It was different from the fog he fought against in mid-May, before he could start preparing his testimony in earnest; he couldn’t shake of the nagging half-formed thoughts that there was something he should do, but he knew that he was done for now, relegated to wandering like a disaffected ghost until he was needed again.

“Promise you’ll help me keep busy?” he asked Patrice. She looked up from her novel.

“I thought you wanted to relax,” she said. She gestured at the beach around them like a smart-alecky tour guide.

“I mean after this.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to say,” Patrice replied, her voice lilting playfully.

“I trust you.” He brushed the sand off his arm before putting it around her waist.

She leaned against him, and it was still so welcome after those weeks of barely seeing her that he didn’t mind the brim of her hat cutting into his shoulder.

“I have some ideas, but I need your input too,” she said.

He didn’t have to think before saying “Keep me away from any articles about my testimony.” As Jim had little else to fill his time, he was becoming increasingly tempted to read the post-testimony press. The only exceptions he made so far were Ben’s overview and the Washington Post parody that left him slumped over the kitchen table in silent laughter. He hoped not to make any more.

“No point in getting a swelled head over any positive coverage before the pendulum inevitably swings back,” he added.

She snort-laughed, and mumbled something lost to the wind and surf crashing.

His checked his phone. Poor Dan texted him an updated list of journalists who contacted him and a note that several news outlets praised his writing. He smiled. Dan knew how many hours he put into his opening statement, and it was a relief to know they hadn’t gone to waste.

“You’re at the beach,” Patrice chided him, and plucked his phone out of his hands the second he sent his reply.

He knew she would do an admirable job of keeping him occupied. Now, he was trying to find a sane way to say _keep me away from my past_.

His nightly visits to simulacra of his past were increasingly stressful, but compared to his previous job, it was livable. It felt like cramming for a final (which he hoped wasn’t indicative of anything! He liked being alive!), except his study materials were out of order, jumbled up notes and xeroxed textbook chapters from the library. He even ‘woke’ one night to his undergrad roommate ripping his blankets off, hollering that he was going to be late for biochem if he didn’t hurry up. Jim could spend one night reflecting that the Department of Justice’s coffee was just as awful as he remembered and the next reprising his role as Chief Obstructionist Weenie at Lockheed-Martin. There was no pattern to where his mind would take him.

 

* * *

 

When he fell asleep that night, he woke in the small meeting room, the secure one on the seventh floor. It didn’t hurt as much as if he had appeared behind his desk, but his heart squeezed its way into his throat. In that moment, it was unbearable to know this is the only way he’d ever be back in the dilapidated room. Jim preferred to call the Hoover Building 'well-loved' over 'shabby', even as he worked with contractors to find its replacement site. His chair creaked as he suddenly shifted forward.

Andy McCabe’s glasses were in his hands in a way that was so familiar that Jim had to stop himself from smiling.

“How long do you estimate until Sessions recuses?” he asked asked.

“He’ll recuse March second,” Jim said automatically.

“What makes you think of that specific date?” asked Jim Baker, squinting suspiciously. “I’m not sure he’ll recuse at all, with all the pressure the White House is putting on him not to.”

Jim furrowed his brow. Baker hadn’t said that as aggressively last time through. But then, he didn’t say the date first time around.

“I trust that the DoJ folks advised him to recuse,” he said simply, eager to shake off the awkwardness. He took a long sip of lukewarm coffee and discreetly glanced out the window. The overcast mid-winter day gave him a better idea of the exact date. This was early February, probably.

James Rybicki shot Baker a look that Jim didn’t like, but McCabe stepped in.

“If he’s not out in a few weeks, we can make more noise at the DoJ,” he rushed to say. Jim mouthed ‘thank you’ when Rybicki looked down at his notes and Baker rummaged through his bag.

“We’re not exactly popular down there,” he said ruefully, “but neither is he, so I think we have a good shot at it.”

He looked up at the cracked ceiling and thought _Take me somewhere else._

And to his surprise, then he was, in a church basement he hadn’t seen in years, with his assistant Sunday school teacher shushing the children. He fell off of the child-size chair in of surprise, his dog-eared Bible open to the Book of Amos.

* * *

 

Of course Patrice lived up to her word. He expected no less of her. On good days, he’d fall into bed with a sense of accomplishment (and a sore back) from cleaning the garage, or something nice, like that catchy song about a ring of keys stuck in his head.

The lack of a consistent workday ached on days that weren’t as good. Pretending he was perfectly content in his new life was harder, even though everyone in his life was tolerant of his quirks, no matter how eccentric. He would be texting one of his brothers or in the grocery store when he was seized by an irrational thought that they hadn’t returned all his personal effects. He’d rush into the study, pick apart the boxes left to find the framed picture of his grandfather or painted clay paperweight with a crumbly ‘98 etched on the bottom.

More out of boredom than need, he dug up two drafts of memoirs he’d abandoned. One was from right after he left the Deputy Attorney General job, and one from 2015 that Freeh insisted he wouldn’t regret writing. Well, he was right. The drafts weren’t anything special, but he amused himself for an afternoon stitching the narratives together and editing the stiltedness away. It kept him from thinking about how much he wished he was doing some kind of work, it didn’t even matter where or what.

That night, his brain obliged. The pristine woods around Bridgewater were part of the reason he took the job. He remembered the commute wasn’t ideal, but the evergreens never failed to cheer him up.

Hurry-up-and-wait was the norm at Bridgewater, but Jim still sighed heavily and checked his watch; he had been there for fifteen minutes. _Come on, fellas,_ he thought half-heartedly, because at least this gave him time to enjoy the view. Finally, they filed out of the meeting room that the note on the door said was reserved for him.

It took ten minutes after that for the man he was questioning to show up. Jim looked down at his notes. _Oh._ That was what he was doing. He was trying to undo Ray’s mistake to interview Jensen and… what was her name? But, anyway, he made the mistake of interviewing them at the same time about Jensen’s behavior to a female subordinate.

“Good afternoon,” Jim said pointedly. The meeting was supposed to begin at 11:45.

Red crept up his neck, but he didn’t apologize for or explain his absence.

“Are we ready?” the male subordinate asked instead, almost missing his chair as he tried to simultaneously look at his phone and sit down.

“Yes,” he said stiffly. His old pique at Dileo’s insistence that he question them personally dissipated slightly over time, but hadn’t gone away entirely.

He went through the usual questions, who was he, when did he work for Jensen, how long he’s been here.

“Now, I’d like to ask you a few questions about Jensen’s behavior.”

“I mean, he was weird, but not inappropriate,” he said immediately. It was all coming back to Jim now.

“What behavior of his would you describe as weird?” he asked.

Somewhat impatiently, he picked the young man’s brain clean of information, from Jensen’s work behavior through to the night Jensen stripped off his pants and set them on fire during a company team-building exercise.

The next morning, Jim combed the Wall St. Journal archives for updates on the case, but it wasn’t the same as hearing it from Ray.


	3. and i'm never going back to my old school

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> m_f_m, I don't know why you deleted, but I enjoyed talking with you and wish you the best. Happy trails, dude.

“You’ve lost some weight since your last physical,” Dr. Lee said, glancing at the chart, “but it’s within normal variation.”

“I-I’m just not hungry lately.” 

“My wife said she’s never seen me leave dinner on my plate before this month,” Jim added with a laugh that belied his concern. He’d been nibbling at everything to make up for the meals he left uneaten: raw vegetables dipped in hummus, chocolate-flavored protein shakes instead of breakfast, dripping spears of dill pickle eaten over the sink; but no matter what, his stomach remained uninterested.

Dr. Lee made a note on the chart.

“Is there something specific that brought you here today?” Dr. Lee asked after the physical exam. He took off his glasses, letting them hang loosely from the chain, and leaned on the counter.

Jim considered his next words very carefully.

“I’ve been having vivid dreams every night for the past few months,” he said. That was close enough to the truth, he supposed.

He considered Jim’s statement with a blandly sympathetic face. “What do you think of these dreams? Do you find them troubling?”

“They’re not really nightmares,” he said quickly, “but there’s something… different about them. Unusually vivid. I rarely remembered my dreams before, but now, it’s much easier to recall even small details.”

“Hmm,” he said, looking down at his chart. 

“Have you had any fevers recently?” Dr. Lee asked.  
“I haven’t been sick since last winter,” said Jim.

“This might sound like a silly question, but do you have a snack around bedtime?”

“Occasionally I’ll have something little--a piece of fruit, maybe.”

“Some people report apples and certain kinds of cheese--soft ones, like camembert-- give them strange dreams.” Dr. Lee rolled his eyes a little as he said it, and Jim smiled. 

“I’ll stick to grapes, then,” he said. Dr. Lee snorted softly

“And finally, I’m not looking for a response if you’re not willing to give one," he began, and Jim smiled. He was clearly not the only public servant Dr. Lee treated. "But certain mental health concerns, including unusual stress, anxiety, and even post-traumatic stress disorder, can make dreams unusually vivid."

Jim pursed his lips and mulled over the information.

"I see," he said slowly. 

"There’s still a lot science doesn’t know about dreams. The current theory is that they’re the body's way of processing information, making memories, and helping the brain form a coherent narrative. If you'll excuse my overfamiliarity, there were a lot of big events in your life recently." 

"Yes, there were, and you’re right to mention it," Jim said. “It’s frustrating to feel like I’m reliving them so every night. I don’t feel as well-rested as I would be if my brain could ‘turn off,’ so to speak.”

Dr. Lee dropped his professional mask just long enough for concern to flash across his face.

If you're concerned about the dreams or would like to reduce them, a therapist would probably be most appropriate for you," he said. “I can write you a referral.

Jim balked. "With my previous work for the federal government..."

"Therapists are bound by law not to--"

"I'm aware of that, I’m more concerned about privacy from other people, like the press.”

“ I’ll look into finding a therapist who has experience working with someone with your particular requirements,” he said smoothly.

Thanks, doc,” said Jim, though he knew he wouldn’t take the offer until at least the conclusion of Mueller’s investigation into his firing.

That night, Jim answered Walter Mondale’s questions in the first flush of his post-Ashcroft testimony attention.


	4. the decision

It was easy to turn down the book offers, at first. It was too soon to be tasteful; he wanted out of the public eye for a while; the little self-serving voice in the back of his head (the one he tries to starve to death) screamed 'your time isn't up yet think of your future someone still likes you in Washington.' He isn’t even sixty, for God's sake. 

He began to question his position when Patrice sat him down with the latest invoices for his legal bills, an evening-eating wade through their finances and increasingly anxious conversation ensued. 

“Yikes,” was all he had to say when she finally paused for a sip of water. The sun had set, and he twisted around in his chair to flick the overhead light on. 

“We could manage if you give more lectures at another school, but we’d have to make a lot of changes.” She didn’t look up from the stack of receipts, but snaked her arm around his waist as she said it.

“Should’ve taken the book offer when I had one,” he said lightly, and immediately regretted it at the look of mingled interest and hurt that crossed her face.

She pursed her lips before asking “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Going public with my story… there’s a lot that can go wrong.” 

She listened patiently as he talked through the minefields he’d have to weave through to avoid damaging Mueller’s investigation and the upcoming OIG report. Her questions were reasonable, but it drained him to admit he couldn’t answer so many of them. 

 

“It’s easier to work with universities to keep things discreet,” he concluded, even though Pres. Frederick talked frankly about the controversies his presence at Howard might cause. Lectures were more easily manageable; you could select students eligible for the class, and ask them to leave their phones at the door. 

“I know you’re thinking a lot about the past these days,” Patrice said and he kept his face carefully neutral. “I think getting everything out on paper would be good for you, regardless of whether it’s published.”

“Do what you think is best, but I think you could make it work. You’re such a good writer,” she said. He smiled through his frustration.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

It took him much longer than usual to fall asleep. When he finally managed, he came to staring at Alberto Gonzalez across a conference, something that he was never really in the mood for, but in his current state of frustration seemed unbearable. Gonzalez sighed and discreetly rolled his eyes when Comey said he needed a restroom break. 

Jim almost hit his head on the doorframe when he barreled into men’s room. He’d been so _dumb_ , he reflected as he locked himself in the handicap stall. With all his past-hopping, he’d never considered looking into the future. He closed his eyes and thought of November 2020.

At first, he felt the familiar tug, but it soon morphed into something different. The tile floor beneath him felt less substantial, until he couldn’t feel the surface he was standing on. The air became unpleasantly dry. When he opened his eyes, what little he could see was blurry and jumbled and green-tinted, like he was looking at a security camera control room from the inside of an old-fashioned glass bubble. Images flashed by him, but they didn’t make any sense to him. He closed his eyes, ready to head back, when--

“Jim?”

She didn’t bother to turn on the light.

“Bad dream?”  
“Yeah, thanks for waking me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pacing, what's that ahaha. most likely editing this soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit is welcome, comments are moderated.


End file.
